The number of natural disasters in Sri Lanka has increased over the last two decades. In particular, the Indian Ocean Tsunami had a disastrous impact on communities in Sri Lanka, with 4,330 deaths and 564 persons reported missing (as of 05 April 2005) in Galle District. In order to raise public awareness of various categories of citizens on disaster reduction, the capacity building project at all community levels starting from the grass-roots level was carried out in Galle District. The initial process started from the process of trainer's training, the so-called District Workshop, and the outcome made the participants trainers in their localities and they repeated the same exercise to educate their communities in Community Workshops. The progress of the project was followed up by Japanese experts. A total of 102 Community Workshops were held in the immediate phase after the District Workshop. The practical session consists of a Community-based Hazard Mapping program of which the results were used to identify disaster vulnerable areas in community neighborhood by the participants.

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This paper is based on the results of research by the Sumatra Earthquake Interdisciplinary or Integrated Research Team, Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University. This research shows: (1) the Sumatra Earthquake tsunami disaster damage in Banda Aceh can be divided into four areas; (2) the tsunami action was directed left and right by the Banda Aceh topography; (3) within which District I saw total destruction of housing, a high death rate, and the collapse of families; (4) with the high death rate due to a lack of earthquake-tsunami association; (5) that even in the core of housing reconstruction, the pace is slow; (6) there are four main obstacles to housing reconstruction; (7) the slow pace of the reconstruction is a function of social causes related to the size of the tsunami, the lack of established adjustment mechanisms for aid groups, the slow pace of the reconstruction in society overall, and the failure of market functions; (8) that in the case of large scale disasters, with the loss of life and home, as well as infrastructure, the collapse of society as an entity occurs as well.

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The Sumatra Tsunami crossed the Indian Ocean on 26th of December 2004 and damaged more than 90,000 houses in Sri Lanka. Following the tsunami, the Government decided to provide three types of houses for the victims (temporary shelters, transitional houses, and permanent houses) according to the stage of reconstruction. Most permanent houses were donated by non-government organizations on the sites supplied by the Government. However, there are regional differences among the affected areas. We conducted a field survey and interviews in the damaged area in November 2005 and March 2006 in the period when the permanent houses were under construction. This paper describes the reconstruction status, regional differences, and problems with regards to the reconstruction process in Sri Lanka.

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In this study, the structural fragility of a bridge structure due to a tsunami wave load is evaluated, quantitatively analyzing the damage data of bridge structures due to the 2004 Tsunami in Sri Lanka and in Indonesia, which are on basis of 58 data on Sri Lanka and 17 data on Sumatra. By the formulation of a fragility curve of a bridge structure from statistical analysis of the data, the structural fragility of a bridge structure due to a tsunami wave load, which describes the relation between the tsunami damage classification of a bridge structure and a tsunami wave load such as inundation depth and inundation height, is revealed.

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Tourism, the fourth largest contributor of Sri Lanka's foreign exchange was soon brought to halt with the December 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. An estimated damage of US$ 250 million to tourist assets and a loss of over 27,000 livelihoods almost ruined the tourist industry of Sri Lanka. An imperative revival process was executed in two phases: immediate relief phase and rapid recovery phase. Immediate relief phase included provision of reassuring measures for tourist victims and notifying the mass media with up to minute tourism situation. The rapid recovery phase was incorporated with a short term recovery process and long term rehabilitation and reconstruction process aimed at recapturing tourist interest, and reestablishing the affected tourist communities and the tourist infrastructure respectively. The lack of a priori disaster management framework and the prevailing security condition of the country impeded the tsunami revival process. This paper documents the impact of the December 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami on tourism in Sri Lanka and a detailed overview of the recovery strategies adopted in the aftermath of the disaster. Furthermore, it assesses the challenges and way forwards providing guidance to formulate a comprehensive disaster management framework for the tourism sector through the influence of the recovery process.

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